1英语语言学教程笔记英语语言学教程笔记Chapter One-Introduction Part one-What is linguistics? 1. Definition-linguistics is generally defined as the scientific study of language. Scientific means it is based on the systematic investigation of linguistic data, conducted with reference to some general theory of language structure. No Article before language in this definition means that linguistics studies language in general. Linguists task: basically study and understand the general principles upon which all languages are built. Interest of linguists is “what is said” 2. The scopes of linguistics General linguistics-the study of language as a whole-the core of linguistics Phonetics-the study of sounds used in linguistic communication. Phonology-the study of how sounds are put together and used to convey meanings in communication. Morphology-the study of the way in which the symbols are arranged and combined to form words. Syntax-the study of the rules for sentence formation Semantics-the study of meaning. Pragmatics-the study of meaning in the context of language use. Above are made up of the core of linguistics Sociolinguistics-the study of all social aspects of language and its relation with society from the core of the branch. Psycholinguistics-the study of language processing, comprehending and production, as well as language acquisition. Applied linguistics-the application of linguistic theories and principles to language teaching , especially the teaching of foreign and second languages. 3. Some important distinctions in linguistics. (1) prescriptive vs. descriptive prescriptive-the linguistic study aims to lay down rules for “correct and standard” behavior in using language, i.e. to tell people what they should say and what they should not say. Descriptive-the linguistic study aims to describe and analyze the language people actually use. Modern linguistics is mostly descriptive. (2) Synchronic vs. diachronic Synchronic-the description of a language at some point of time in history. Diachronic-the description of a language as it changes through time-the historical development of language over a period of time-another name: historical linguistics. A synchronic approach enjoys priority over a diachronic one. (3) Speech vs. writing Two major media of linguistic communication Speech is prior to writing: (1)writing system is always “invented” by its users to record speech.2(2)speech plays a greater role than writing in information conveyance. (3)speech is acquired as mother tongue while writing is learned and taught. (4)speech reveals true features of human speech while writing language is only the “revised” record of speech. (4) Langue vs. parole Proposed by Swiss linguist-F. de Saussure-sociological view. Purpose: discover the regularities governing the actual use of language and make them the subjects of study of linguistics. Langue-the abstract linguistic system shared by all the members of s speech community.- abstract it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages-how they are produced, how they differ from each other, what phonetic features they possess, how they can be classified. 2 Phonology aims to discover how speech sounds in a language from patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication. E.g. allophones clear l and dark l: Phonetically speaking, they are interested in the differences how they are pronounced. Phonologically speaking, they are the same in functioning conveyance of the meanings. 2. Phone, Phoneme, and Allophone phone : The speech sound we use when speaking a language, which does not necessarily distinguish meaning in the English language. phoneme : The smallest unit of sound in a language which can distinguish two sounds. allophone : any different forms of the same phoneme in different phonetic environments, e.g. clear l and dark l of the same l, aspirated p and unaspirated p of the same p in different phonetic environments. 3. Phonemic contrast, complementary distribution, and minimal pair phonemic contrast : two similar sounds occur in the same environment and distinguish meaning. E.g. b in bit and p in pit form phonemic contrast. complementary distribution : allophones of the same phoneme and they dont distinguish meaning but complement each other in distribution. E.g. clear l and dark l respectively in the pronunciation of light and feel.6minimal pair: two different forms are identical in every way except one sound and occurs in the same position. The two sounds are said to form a minimal pair. E.g. bat and bet are a minimal pair. 4. Some Rules in Phonology 1 sequential rules: The rules to govern the combination of sounds in a particular language. 2 assimilation rule: The rule assimilates one sound to another by copying a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones similar. 3 deletion r